


Love can make you cruel

by Left4Shade-Due (ShadeDuelist)



Category: Left 4 Dead 2
Genre: Gangsters, Hunter - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-14
Updated: 2013-01-14
Packaged: 2017-11-25 13:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeDuelist/pseuds/Left4Shade-Due
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ellis is taken from him by a man from his past, Nick finds that some of the skills he's learnt during the zombie apocalypse come in very handy to rescue his lover again.</p><p>Written for Phantomoftheserpents as a gift for the holidays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love can make you cruel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [phantomoftheserpents](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=phantomoftheserpents).



“Ellis?”, Nick called out when he got home, dropping his briefcase on the ground next to the door.  He'd had a hard day at his job as sales team leader for an important company, and as a result he was just about as exhausted as he could be.  Mostly, his lover waited for him at home, with a warm dinner and a dozen questions about his day, when he came home from a late night meeting – just like it was the case now – but occasionally, the mechanic had a late night as well, either due to his work or due to Keith taking him out for a beer.  And that night was no exception, apparently: when Nick called out for him again, the southerner didn't answer, and the ex-gambler suspected he'd be home later that night, smelling of cheap beer and cigarettes and chili – all of which were the poison of choice for the red-haired, fire-hearted hick his lover called his best and oldest friend.  Instead of the dinner waiting for him, he apparently had to rely on leftovers and the microwave.

“Oh, Ellis, you're making up for this tonight...”, Nick said as he opened the fridge to comb it for leftovers. When he found only two silces of cheese and some leftover meatballs in tomato sauce, he added, “...you're making up for this big time...”  Sighing, he took the leftovers and heated them in the microwave oven.

 

The hours passed slowly for Nick.  One hour became two at a snail's pace, and those two turned to three even slower.  Nick busied himself any way he could – reading a book he'd read thirteen times already, watching some television, cleaning up the clutter on and around his desk, even listening to one of Ellis' inane Midnight Riders albums.  But nothing lifted his boredom and made him look forward to Ellis' return any less. Somehow, his evening routine had become dependant on Ellis.  Somehow, _he_ had become dependant on Ellis, for that matter, and that irked him.  Like he couldn't function anymore without the hick.  And no matter how true that fact was, he'd never willingly admit as much.

However, a second after he felt that twinge of worry, he relaxed again and exhaled a soft sigh.  Truth be told, it probably was the same way for his lover.  Ellis had incorporated a few things into his evening routine that were decidedly his influence, like the hour at which he finally decided to call it an evening, and also the happy hour they always spent in between the moment they finally went to bed and the time they actually fell asleep.  Nick had had a few lovers in his long and illustrious past – never a relationship, of course, like he had with the hick, another fact he'd only begrudgingly admitted to himself, let alone others – but none of them had the energy or the enthusiasm of the southerner.  Or, Nick added with a soft grin, his kind heart and his neverending willingness to forgive him his past and sometimes present mistakes.

“...Ah, Ellis... I used to think that you were irritating and a damn nuisance when I had you around 24/7, but now I'd give goddamn money to have you here...”, Nick admitted softly – his voice no more than a whisper in the night.  The yawn that followed it was even more telltale – Nick was a night owl if ever there was one, never tired before twelve – and now, when he looked at the clock, it was only ten thirty and he was already contemplating going to bed.  For a second, Nick thought of switching on the television and using their hard-earned pay-tv subscription to get at least some measure of gratification into his evening, but then he thought again of Ellis and his right hand suddenly seemed a less viable alternative.  “...I'd give my whole goddamn fortune to have you in my bed right damn now...”, Nick added with surprisingly less irritation than he had thought he'd show at a thought like that, and he finally stopped resisting the urge to call it an early night. Heading into the kitchen, he wrote a small note for his lover that he'd pin to the bedroom door for him to find.

_'Ell,_

_went to bed early tonight.  Fuck it if I didn't miss you._

_Wake me up before 10 and there's hell to pay._

_Unless if you're naked.  Or carrying breakfast. Or both._

_Love, Nick.'_  

The note conveyed his irritation only minimally, but he resolved to give his lover a nice rough wake-up call regardless of the hour he awoke and that thought made him grin far more than the previous note he'd left him, when he'd just stated that the hick could sleep on the couch until he was goddamn sober again.

Grinning at the memory of the way Ellis had prepared him an almost ludicrously extravagant breakfast that he'd brought up stark naked to get him to let him into their bedroom again, Nick started to turn off the lights in their living room.

The next morning, Nick was woken up by a loud ringing sound.  For a few drowsy seconds, he thought it could be his alarm clock – but then he shot upright in bed when he realized that Ellis was the only one that needed to set an alarm clock, and the hick used his cellphone for that.

The ringing could only come from their telephone.

Grumbling – softly at first, but then louder and with more invective once he noticed the time – Nick wound his way downstairs, wondering who the hell would have the patience to ring him up for a full minute.  It couldn't be Ellis' mother, because she'd stop ringing now and call Ellis' cellphone; Keith didn't even know their telephone number; and his brother, Vincent, would never ring this early in the morning.  So who could it be?  And why hadn't they lost their patience yet?

“...Stuart residence.”, he said – when he didn't know who was calling, he always used Ellis' last name. People didn't need to know it was his house as well.  But apparently, the person on the other side already did, and the sound of his voice made Nick's blood freeze in his veins.

“Brody... you're a hard man to find.  I commend you for that.”

“...Coulter.”  It was a voice that Nick had tried his hardest to forget, a voice that still sent a shiver of loathing and regret down his spine.  Benjamin 'Benji' Coulter was an extortionist, a professional liar, and the man that had taught him how to be the dishonest scumbag he'd been until he met Ellis and bettered his ways.  “Why the hell are you calling?”

“Can't an old friend call an old friend without it being odd?”, the man on the other side said suavely, and Nick gritted his teeth audibly.

“We were never friends, Coulter.  I'll ask you again, why the hell-”

“Easy, Brody, easy...  I'm calling you because there's something I want from you.  Something you took from me.  Something you're going to give back to me right away, Brody...”

“What the hell are you talking about, Coulter?  I didn't fucking steal from you.”, Nick said, his voice clipped and his tone irate.  But the man on the other side just chuckled and spoke again, voice even more suave than before.

“Oh, but you did, Nick – oh, you, uh, don't mind if I call you Nick, right?”

“I mind-”, Nick started, but this time the man's voice was a bit more angry as he interrupted again.

“Manners, Nick...  You did take something from me, you just get confused a bit.  You didn't steal anything from me... but yourself.”

“Me?”, Nick said, nonplussed.  “...what the hell's so special about me?”

“Nothing.  You're utterly replaceable.  But you just up and left.  And nobody just leaves Benji Coulter.  Not even for a reason as stunningly hot as yours.”  The way he spoke of Ellis – because there was no doubt in Nick's mind that the man meant Ellis, especially not since some of the things the man had taught him about dishonesty were taught in between a very physical kind of entertainment – had Nick gritting his teeth again and his tone changed from irate to downright livid, his every word tasting bitter on his tongue.

“Don't you goddamn talk about him like that.  Don't you goddamn talk about him at all, you fucking miserable piece of shit.  Don't you even dare fucking thing about him, or so help me, I'm coming down there to shoot that goddamn grin off your miserable face and stamp you off the face of the planet like the fucking inbred piece of filth you are.”

“Why, Nick, you wound me...”, the man on the other side said – and just as Nick vaguely wondered why the man could possibly sound even more like an asshole than he had before, the reason became audible.

“N-nick?  ...Shit, Nick, ah-”  A pained groan ended the hick's voice, but it was all too clear that Ellis was there, with that bastard, that asshole, that-

“See, Nick?”, Coulter said, and Nick resolved, then and there, to kill the man even if it were the last thing he ever did.

“...I see.”, he said, keeping his tone level and somewhat quiet.  He figured feigning fear would be the best option now.  But inside, he was calculating his odds.  If the hick had brought out anything in him, it was his strategising side, his cold and calculating side...

...the side that would do anything, risk anything, to get the things he wanted.  It was the way he'd survived the zombie apocalypse, the way he and Ellis had defended their relationship to the outside world both during and after the Green Flu.

And now, it would be the way he rescued the man he had grown to need, to want, and – yes, he admitted it readily right then – to love.

“...Nicky... I knew you'd see things my way...”, Benjamin Coulter said, and Nick sighed in frustration – feigned, for the most part, but rooted in real aggravation at the way things had turned out.  “...So listen up...”

And Nick listened.  And he planned.

 

“Nicky!”, Benjamin Coulter said with a broad grin, standing up in the dusky little back room of the bar he operated from.  Next to him, a thickset man looked at the newcomer and then grunted, looking back at the wall – but Nick gave the man no notice.  He walked up to the man, eyes fixed on him, burning with hatred but his expression betraying a carefully constructed and meticulously acted out fear.

“…I’m here.  Like you asked.”, he said, his voice soft and none of his ire shining through.  And the man opposite him was easily misguided into considering himself victorious: grinning, Coulter rose and pulled him close, inhaling deeply.  It did nothing but disgust Nick.

“…Mmmm, Nick, you haven’t lost that perfect veneer you always kept about you, not even in that dreadful Green Flu business.  God, I don’t think I ever wanted to remove that white suit of yours more than I want to right now…”  The man’s grin turned predatory, and for a second Nick feared that he would, indeed, remove the suit, but then he pushed Nick away again and spoke up, his tone actually regretful.  “But business before pleasure.  You remember the San Francisco deal I negotiated?  The one you very unwisely turned down?  Well, Bobby Newman’s turned – into a zombie, I mean, not turned snitch – and got himself shot by the military… and now I need someone capable of lying and cheating his way through customs control there in order to receive some highly important goods…”

“And of course you thought of me.”, Nick said, his voice soft and now a slight sliver of anger shining through.  “Coulter, you’re even more of an asshat than I took you for.  …But you’ve got Ellis…”, he hastily added when the thickset bodyguard rose again, his small, watery eyes getting that pinched look that signaled murderous rage,  causing both men in front of him to grin and fall back into their chairs.  “…so I won’t argue.  On one condition.”, he said, and mentally, Nick Brody grinned victoriously when his new ‘boss’ nodded.  They were falling right into it.

“Just name it.”

“I want you to let Ellis go.”  Benjamin Coulter’s smile flashed just one split second of rage and then one split second more of almost cruelly vindictive pleasure, but it was enough for Nick to know just what orders he’d give.

“…Of course…  Jon, go cut our little caught bird loose… make sure our old friend Nick doesn’t have to worry about him anymore.”  Nick knew that the man’s orders were to set Ellis free, let him run just a few steps, and then shoot him as he went.  But none of that mattered anymore, as he spoke his next words.

“Now that you’ve made sure my partner is safe, we can discuss this assignment… Coulter.”

 

Jonathon Brent DeGroof was a lot of things – strong, surprisingly nimble for his stature, with reflexes not unlike a cat’s – but smart was not one of them.  He did as he was told, no more and no less.  So when he walked through the hallways, he took no heed to the fact that the soles of his shoes left bright red dots on the floor wherever he walked…

However, the pained shout coming from the hallway behind him did not escape him, no matter how faint it was, and he doubled back with a startled cry.

 

“… _Uuuuuugh…_ ”, Benjamin Coulter said, clutching his stomach after Nick withdrew the blade.  He felt his blood seep out of him agonizingly slowly, but already his limbs grew weary, already his body felt more like a prison to his awake mind than a tool.  “Whuuu… aaaaaaaaaaahhhh… ghhhh…”, he moaned softly, his lips unable to form that word on his mind, but Nick answered the question as if he’d voiced it perfectly.

“I didn’t survive the goddamn apocalypse to just come tiptoeing back to you, you fucking asshat.  Ellis is fucking everything to me, _everything_ – not that a lowlife piece of shit like you would ever understand something like that… to you, I was just some guy to warm your bed and to do your bidding.  To him, I’m the man that he can depend on, the man that will take care of him no matter what.  The man that loves him.  …Now, the thing is, I’ve learnt a thing or two in the zombie end-of-days and the post-Infection cleanup.  Did you know that sometimes, all it takes for a Carrier to turn is the scent of blood?  Or a helpless victim, laid out for him like a buffet?  A little bit of poison and you can’t lift a finger to save yourself.”  The sound of hurrying footsteps came from the hallway, and now the former con man’s grin turned dark.  “…Oh, I sure hope Jon got all of his shots in time…”

“N-nick… y-yuuuuh… n-naaaaaahhh…”, the man said, panic fuelling him to slur out the words, and Nick nodded.

“Like you wouldn’t kill Ellis?  I think we both know the answer to that question, right?”, the con man said as he stepped out the door, grinning viciously and leaving Benjamin to lay, helpless and bleeding steadily.

It only took one more minute for Jon to arrive, but it took several more minutes for Benjamin ‘Benji’ Coulter to stop screaming as his bodyguard-turned-Hunter feasted on his limp and weak body.

 

“Uhhhn…”, Ellis groaned as he came round again.  He had a throbbing headache and a throat dry as sandpaper, his knees were weak but they supported his weight, and his discomfort was such that it took him a few minutes to fully go back into that fear-filled state of mind he’d been in ever since he got dragged into a dark van when walking back to his car after a night out with Keith.  Whoever it was that had dragged him off, they’d been thorough, because suddenly the memory of the sting of a needle came to mind, and his headache became all the more dull.  “W-where am ah… Nick?  Nick!  Awh shit, how’s Nick gotten intuh this…”, the southerner said softly.  He remembered being half-awake, hearing the con man’s voice over the telephone that had been shoved against his ear, and then more darkness and a sharper pain.  But then a sharper curse escaped him as he found his hands tied behind his back.  “Aw _fuck_ , how’d _AH_ git intuh this mess?!”

Then, he heard hurried footsteps leading to him, and fear struck him.  The door opened, and the light from outside made his throbbing headache worse, causing him to wince and turn his head away.

“D-dun’ hurt me…”, he said feebly, knowing that there was no way he could defend himself properly.

“Jesus Christ, Ellis…”, came a voice that was so soothing and comforting and downright _perfect_ to him at that moment it sent his headache into the realm of distant memories, even when he looked right at Nick as he walked inside, the light from outside making his white suit dazzlingly bright.  His lover’s hands were shaking as they loosened the rope tying his hands together behind his back, and Nick’s eyes were tear-filled, but to Ellis he hadn’t ever felt or looked so reassuring or confident, and when the former gambler pulled him against himself for a long, deep, needful kiss, he gave in with all he had, wanting to forget all that had happened and all that could’ve happened.  When they detached, Nick didn’t speak, merely holding him close, but now the words flowed from Ellis’ lips like water from a waterfall.

“Nick… _Nick, awh, Nick, ah… fuck, ah was scared fer yeh…_ N-nick, tha’ other guy-“

“I solved that problem.”, Nick said, his voice at once soothing, angry, and regretful, and Ellis didn’t ask any more.  He knew that ‘solving’ the problem probably involved something he was better off not knowing about.  But when Nick spoke on, his heart gave a little jump in his chest.  “…Jesus, Ellis, _no one_ is _ever_ going to try anything like that to you ever again, _I swear_.”

“Ah know they ain’t, Nick…”, the mechanic said softly, leaning his head against Nick’s shoulder as the two of them walked slowly back through the cold hallway, away from the sound of gunfire coming from the other side.  “…Ah know they ain’t…”


End file.
